How To Delight Your Customers By Saying Less

When it comes to business, complex tactics are abound, however, today I wanted to share perhaps the simplest yet most effective business tip I know.

It is highly practical and requires no additional effort, however, it does require restraint and discipline.

When you first engage a customer or client, the temptation is to throw everything you’ve got at them in order to win their business. You promise the world, confident in the knowledge that you can and will deliver. I know this because I’ve been there many, many times.

Now, without changing your product or service offering, let’s reframe the situation slightly.

Consider your product or service to be 100% of what you can provide to the consumer or client — as I’m sure it is.

The key to this winning tactic, however, is to actually express restraint in your pitch, withholding say 5–10% of your full offering.

The reason being that when you promise the world — and deliver — your client or consumer will be satisfied but they won’t be surprised and delighted, for all you have done is met the expectations laid down by yourself. Frankly, anything less than 100% would be unsatisfactory.

However, when you exercise a little discipline and promise 90–95%, thereby giving yourself the room to over-deliver, this is where the magic happens. This is where customers and clients start talking — and we all know that word of mouth is the most enduring form of marketing for business.

This tactic can be implemented in absolutely any industry; if you take five minutes or so to have a think about how you could utilise this, I’m sure the answer will become apparent soon enough.

I’d love to hear your thoughts — is this something you already do? What could you do to implement this to improve your service or product? Drop a comment below or follow me over on Instagram and let me know!